5 Course Thai Meal Anyone?

If ever asked this question just say yes. You won't regret it for a moment, I promise. Today we took a Thai cooking class and learned how to prepare 5 Thai dishes. Even if they had tasted horrible, it just felt so good to be cooking again! Back home I used to think it might be nice to be able to eat out more often, but really it's not. I'm realizing in its absence that I love cooking and really miss it. Even if it's just throwing together a PB&J, it's my PB&J and it tastes good.

We started off making hot and sour prawn soup. There were quite a few ingredients but the galangla is the most memorable to me. When put in a soup for flavor you're really not supposed to eat it. It's like chewing on something woody and spicy/gingery, I learned this the hard way...one of the rare occasions that I've spit out my food. That glitch aside, it was so delicious. And i got to make it as spicy as I wanted. That is one odd thing I've found about the food here. No matter how much you ask for it, they never make the food too spicy. Probably because I'm white and white people aren't supposed to like it spicy:)

Then came the fish cakes. These were the most fun to make because they had the added danger of frying in grease. I don't know why I like that, but it's just more fun. Gently sliding each little cake into the grease, trying to cause the least amount of disturbance. No burn marks to date so that went pretty well. The fish cakes were alright, but I think I'd like to try them with chicken when I get back instead.

Next came the green curry with chicken. Green curry is my favorite kind out here. But I definitely need to work on my skills in actually making the curry. It may have gone better if one of the instructors wasn't looking over my choulder and throwing things in whenever he wanted...but then again, it may have gone worse had he not. I'll have to give it a try when I get back. I may need some guinea pigs so I hope some of you are up for it!

We made Pad Thai next. It's not my favorite dish and the people here don't really eat it. I kind of feel like they teach it to appease westerners. I did really enjoy making it though because I got to use a giant walk and a cool spatula-shovel looking utensil. It tasted fine, but I was also getting really full by then.

Our fourth course was called laap gai which is a Thai version of chicken salad. No mayo and much better than it's American counterpart. This was my favorite course hands down. It was so hot out that eating something somewhat cooler just felt nice. And it had a lot of flavor with simple ingredients. Delicious.

Last we threw together a dessert called Tab Tim Grop. After reading the description I was kind of skeptical-the main ingredient is water chestnuts which I don't like at all. What we did with them was very simple. Chopped them up, covered them in red food dye (not sure why, presentation?), rolled them in tapioca flour and stuck them in boiling water for 15 seconds. We then took them from the hot water, dipped them in cold water and set them aside to cool. Later on we covered them in sugar syrup, coconut milk and ice. Sounds strange, no? Remember Cap'n Crunch? The end result tasted kind of like crunch berries...it was really good! I want to try it with pears and apples when I get home just to see what the difference in taste is.

So that is a 5 course Thai meal. Oh so filling and oh so delicious.

Tomorrow we are starting class with Pichest about 30 mins outside the city. I've heard Allie talk about him for a long time now so I am really excited (and maybe a bit nervous) to work with him. It sounds like we'll be learning a lot more about theory and energy work which really interests me so I'm pretty stoked.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend...go Vikings!!

Sawat dee ka
Andrea